


Rancor

by gakarian



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Dishonored 2, Dishonored 2 Spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-07 00:08:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8775301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gakarian/pseuds/gakarian
Summary: Dishonored 2 Spoilers! -- Kirin Jindosh writes through his recovery after having his mind wiped by Emily Kaldwin.  Post-nonlethal takedown of Jindosh.





	

28th Day, Month of Harvest

Is an inventor still an inventor when his intelligence is taken away from him?  When his ~~inkwis~~ ~~inquisetive~~ inquisitive nature is removed?

It has been a week since the former Empress, Emily Kaldwin, had invaded my home.  Since my life was ruined.

Multiple guards have been reassigned to Cullero, as many as fifty.  Many of my wait staff have left my service.  My position as Grand Inventor to the Duke of Serkonos has been ~~rivoked~~ revoked.  Many of my clockworks have been sold to build a support system, a safety net, in ~~preperation~~ preparation for when I lose this mansion.

I cannot leave my room.  I cannot face anyone after what has happened.

 

2nd Day, Month of Nets

My hands won’t stop shaking. 

I attempted to take ahold of a screwdriver for the first time since I was electrocuted.  My brain is refusing to allow me to fix this bloody lamp in my room; it’s ~~contentuously~~ ~~continyoo~~ continuously flickering.  I used to know how to fix it within seconds.  I used to know how to fix it so that the bulbs lasted longer.

Now I can only shut it off and light a candle in its place.  And candles still flicker.

For the first time, I cannot do anything I set my mind to, because my mind is not what it once was.

I broke the lamp in ~~frustrashun~~ frustration, threw it across the room into the bedroom door.  I heard a maid gasp on the other side of the door.

I can’t bring myself to throw out my tools.  Even if they feel ~~forin~~ foreign in my hands now, I can’t do it.

 

5th Day, Month of Nets

I haven’t eaten in days.  The thought of eating makes me ~~nawsh~~ ~~nawzeous~~ nauseous.

There’s a young maid who has been checking on me daily.  I think it’s because the other staff members have either quit or are spending their time reveling over my defeat, but she has been particularly patient with me.  She keeps her eyes to the floor, especially when I lose my temper, but she speaks quietly and gives me the privacy I need, unlike the former maid ~~asined~~ assigned to my room.

I’m reading over my former entries, and, though I shan’t admit it in public or private company, a tear comes to my eye.  I knew how to spell less than a week ago.  I knew how to _write_.  I had a wide ~~vokab~~ ~~vocabyoo~~ range of words.  I knew how to fix more than lamps; I built _metal soldiers_.

Why did this happen to me?  Have I truly betrayed the core of goodness? What have I done to deserve my intellect to be ~~forsibly~~ forcibly removed?

I see the way the maids, the guards, the visitors, look at me.  I am not blind.  I know I am not loved for anything more than my money and my inventive spirit.

That was all I had.  And now it is gone.

 

10th Day, Month of Nets

The same ~~made~~ maid brought me tea today.  I asked her to sit with me for a while.  She’s a very dainty woman, can’t be older than 25.  She looked terrified to be in the same room as me, but tried her hardest to hide it.

I was never grand at interacting with others.  Solitude was, and still is, my strongest suit.  I asked her what she was afraid of, and, surprisingly enough, she was honest with me.  She heard me throwing things ~~frekwently~~ frequently inside my room, shattering glass, splintering the wood of the door, clanging metal jars against the granite of the floors.

I couldn’t respond.  I’d been having fits of anger ever since Kaldwin cornered me in my laboratory.  I took a sip of my tea, and a tremor suddenly appeared in my hand, spilling it all over my suit.

She sat quietly as I shattered the ~~seramic~~ ceramic teacup on the floor in rage. Once I was calm, she told me to leave the soiled clothes in the hamper outside the door so she could take care of them.

My head is pounding.  I asked her to bring me aspirin about ten minutes ago.  Hopefully she’ll be back soon.

 

14th Day, Month of Nets

My hands are going insane without anything to do.  I tried to read one of my old scientific journals, and it all reads gibberish to me.  I think I got a ~~paragraff~~ paragraph in before my hands started bending the corners of the pages in boredom.  I even attempted a small puzzle on my own.  I threw it across the room in frustration.  It’s almost funny, in a way; my hands constantly need something to do, but if I try to do anything, they either seize up or tremor.  A cruel joke, I’ve decided.

The maid returned with a hamper of clean laundry.  Again, I asked her to stay.  I asked her why she took this job.  She quietly said, “As a maid, or as your caretaker?”

I laughed at first.  “My caretaker?  Surely you don’t think I’m that far gone?”

She had this fearful ~~expreshun~~ expression on her face, like she knew she’d offended me.  She profusely apologized, getting on her knees before me and begging for my forgiveness, as though I’d behead her right then.  I rolled my eyes, told her to stand, asked her to fetch me some tea.  The longer I thought about it, the angrier I became. 

My _caretaker_.  They don’t even see me as an independent anymore.  What am I to them if not a feeble-minded fool, a victim, a small-brained twat?

 

19th Day, Month of Nets

I’ve gone through three pens already.  I keep squeezing them and snapping them in half when I’m writing.  I have no sensitivity in my hands anymore.  If I don’t pay attention, I end up gripping too hard; I’ve had to have stitches in my left hand because I shattered a glass ~~silinder~~ ~~cylender~~ cylinder with my bare hands.  And when I try to be gentle with things, I drop them, and they break anyway.

My mind is slowly coming back to me, one drop at a time.  But it’s taking longer than expected.  My hands won’t cooperate long enough to do what my mind tells them to do.  I spent three hours yesterday cramming the spellings of several words into my head.  I used my scientific journals as a guide.  I hadn’t realized how far gone I was until I tried to spell the word ~~superflewus~~ ~~superfluus~~ “superfluous.”  (It pains me to say that I had to look that word up today.)  It’s not that I don’t remember these words; I simply can’t define them, or spell them, or use them. 

(I sound as though I’m in denial.)

 

26th Day, Month of Nets

The maid tends to come to my room twice or three times a day with my tea, or my meals, or a basket of laundry, sometimes more if I have another fit and break something—which feels nearly daily at this point. 

I was pacing with my tea in my hand yesterday, talking at her, when the teacup fell from my hand, spilling it all over her uniform.  I was about to lose my head when she suddenly took my hand in hers.  Her voice was soft, soothing.  “It’s okay,” she said.  She sounded like a mother cradling her crying child, yet I wasn’t offended.  It didn’t sound pitying; it sounded as though she was genuinely concerned for my wellbeing.

Part of me thinks, why did I let her touch me?  Doesn’t she know her place?  But the other side is telling me it was exactly what I needed.

I need a few days to think this over.

 

6th Day, Month of Rain

I can still feel her hand gnarled in my hair, forcing me into the electroshock chair.

At first, I was angry.  Perhaps I still am, ~~ocashunally~~ occasionally.  But now I feel nothing but despair.

When the maid came today, I asked her if she’d lost anything important to her before.  “My mother,” she said.  “When I was sixteen.”

I asked her what her mother was like.  “Kind, but calculating.  She was studying in the Academy when she died.”

I don’t remember my mother.  I don’t remember if I remembered her before I was attacked or not.

 

11th Day, Month of Rain

I never drank tea with honey.  The maid suggested I try it.  I don’t know how I’ve survived without it until now.

 

25th Day, Month of Rain

I hadn’t noticed until today, but the maid walks with a limp.  She said it was from a childhood accident; playing with the circuits in a whale oil dispenser.  I was shocked.  How did she survive such an explosion?  She merely smiled at me, taking a sip of her own tea, telling me that she believed in luck.

I never believed in luck.  I believed in circumstance, in skill, in wise and poor decisions.


End file.
